As personal electronic entertainment choices increase, there is more incentive to connect the various media devices together in a network in order to share data, increase convenience, and make fuller use of each element. For example, certain devices within a home may be connected together. In such an environment, there are multiple potential sources and users of streaming digital media content for audio, video, gaming, and other uses.
In an entertainment network, data in the form of media streams may be transferred between the network devices. The media streams may be controlled within the network using a conventional technology. A variety of protocols exist to control the delivery of media streams. Examples of such technologies include RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance). These and similar protocols are generally based on HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), XML (Extensible Markup Language) schemas, or other text-based protocols.
However, conventional protocols may be too heavyweight for low-resource devices, particularly those that do not have sufficient buffering or processing capabilities to process variable-length strings or to manage open connections to several other devices. If devices in an entertainment network are implemented with limited resources, the conventional protocols may be difficult to implement practically in the network.